Upon Further Review: A Brief History of Instant Replay

Instant replay in sports has sparked about as much controversy as it has eliminated since the feature was introduced more than 50 years ago, but it's hard to imagine watching games today without it. Here's a look back at the men behind the invention and how various sports have incorporated the use of instant replay through the years.

Instant Replay Pioneer

George Retzlaff, a Toronto-based producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's wildly popular "Hockey Night in Canada," used a hot processor to produce a wet-film replay of a goal during the 1955-56 season.

Retzlaff annoyed the advertising agency that sponsored the show by not providing advanced notice that he was planning to employ this innovative technique, and the program's other production studio in Montreal didn't have the equipment to replicate the method, so Retzlaff never used it again. Still, Retzlaff's not-quite-instant replay was a seminal moment in the history of sports broadcasting and ranks No. 24 on the CBC's list of the greatest Canadian inventions of all time.

The Origins of Videotape-Based Replay

Tony Verna, who was hired as a director at CBS by future Dallas Cowboys general manager and NFL innovator Tex Schramm, had experimented with videotape while working the 1960 Rome Olympics. Verna spent a lot of time directing football games and was determined to find an interesting way to fill the lulls in the action between snaps. He also wanted to be able to show viewers the game that was taking place away from the ball on a given play. "If it didn't happen on TV, it didn't happen," Verna told Joe Starkey of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2003. Verna eventually developed a system—using audio tones added to the cue track of the videotape—that enabled him to rewind to the point just before the ball was snapped on the previous play for instant playback.

Instant Replay's Big Debut

Verna debuted his instant replay technique on December 7, 1963, during the annual Army-Navy football game. While technical glitches with the 1,200-pound videotape machine that Verna had transported to Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium prevented him from using the feature in earlier in the game—one replay camera was focused on Navy quarterback Roger Staubach and another on Army quarterback Rollie Stichweh throughout the day—it was finally introduced on Stichweh's one-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. As the touchdown was replayed at full speed, and therefore indistinguishable from live action, play-by-play man Lindsey Nelson declared, "This is not live! Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again." According to Verna, the first replay tape, which has since been lost, was recorded over a tape that included episodes of I Love Lucy. Verna went on to a distinguished career in television and detailed the invention of instant replay in a 2008 book.

Early Spread and Opinions of Instant Replay

Instant replay slowly became more ubiquitous. In 1965, the New York Times reported on a new feature of baseball broadcasts on ABC, which was the first network to use slow motion replay. "At least one station plans to introduce 'instant replay' and also a 'stop motion' or 'freeze' technique that could prove whether a base umpire's call on a runner was in reality right or wrong," Val Adams wrote. "The day of reckoning for umpires may be near." Former baseball slugger Ralph Kiner, a commentator for the Mets, had a different opinion. "I never saw the camera yet that could countermand an umpire, considering that the camera angle is just as prone to error as anything else," Kiner said. "In fact, video tapes seem to show how few mistakes umpires make."

A Costly and Useful Innovation

Instant replay, especially in the early days, was an expensive production. In 1966, the Pacific 8 college football conference voted to outlaw the television device that enabled football coaches to view instant replays on the field. Most of the schools that voted against the device, which provided a competitive advantage, did so because of the cost associated with purchasing one. There were other instances when coaches wondered when instant replay would be adopted to improve the game. One such example came in 1966, when Florida defeated rival Florida State in a game that featured a controversial finish. Officials ruled that FSU receiver Lane Fenner was out of bounds when he caught what would have been the winning touchdown. "I know it's a judgment call and there is nothing I can do about it," Florida State head coach Bill Peterson said. "But with all the electronic devices we have in football, why don't we have videotape or something like it to help officials?" Dave Nelson, a secretary for the NCAA, replied, "It is not true that pictures don't lie." College football wouldn't adopt a form of instant replay to determine calls until 2004.

In-Stadium Discretion

While leagues didn’t initially adopt instant replay for use by umpires and officials, teams took advantage of the technology to improve the in-stadium experience for fans. In April 1977, the four-man umpiring crew of a game between the Braves and Astros in Atlanta left the field in protest of the scoreboard operator’s decision to show a controversial replay. Predictably, the crowd began to boo the umpires after the replay revealed that they had made an incorrect call. The umpires received word from Braves management that close plays would not be replayed in the future before returning to the field. In fact, the Braves installed a former major league umpire in the press box to decide whether a specific play was too controversial to show.

One year earlier, the New York Yankees were fined $1,000 and reprimanded by the league after using their instant replay scoreboard to “produce fan reaction against the umpires.” A Yankees team spokesman responded in The New York Times, “We would like to point out that we have only the fans in mind when we use our scoreboard for instant replays. The board cost us $30 million and we see no reason why fans at the ballgame should see any less than the fans at home.” Today, most leagues have policies about what replays can be shown in stadiums and arenas. In the NFL, only the broadcast feed is shown on video screens and it must not be shown after the referee makes his call. You’re unlikely to see a replay of a close play on the scoreboard at a baseball game, especially a questionable ball or strike call.

The NFL’s Trial Run and Instant Replay Adoption

The NFL implemented a trial run of instant replay during seven preseason games in 1978. “We’ll do a dry run on the replay on officiating decisions,” Commissioner Pete Rozelle told reporters. “We’re not going to implement anything, but it will be part of a study.” In 1986, the NFL approved replay for use in regular season games. A game official in the press box reviewed plays on the same feed that viewers at home saw and had the authority to reverse any call that was “totally conclusive.” The league mandated that any replay decision be made within 15 to 20 seconds so as not to disrupt the flow of the game. “It will be expensive,” Tex Schramm said at the time. “But money doesn’t make any difference to this league.”

Communication between the replay official and the on-field was initially a problem. During a Monday night game early in the season, the on-field officials nullified a Denver Broncos touchdown because of what they ruled was an illegal forward lateral. The official in the replay booth reviewed the play and determined that the call was wrong, but by that point the Broncos had already run another play. Toward the end of the season, The New York Times and CBS Sports conducted a poll about the system. Sixty-six percent of fans thought it improved the game; 20 percent thought it made the game worse. Coaches and owners voted to drop replay in 1992, complaining that it slowed the pace of games, but voted 28-3 in favor of reinstating it as a challenged-based system before the 1999 season.

Baseball Resists

Perhaps in the interest of preserving the heritage of America’s national pastime, baseball has been the most hesitant of the major sports to adopt replay. In 1988, MLB Commissioner Peter Ueberroth declared, "There will not be instant replay of any sort. We're just not going to do it. The umpires making split-second decisions is part of the flavor of the game. We don't want to lose that flavor. You can make a dish so bland that it's not worth sitting down at the table." Ueberroth’s announcement came one week after an umpire used a scoreboard replay to reverse one of his calls.

In 2008, the league instituted replay of disputed home run calls. This season, Armando Galarraga’s imperfect perfect game, in which first base umpire Jim Joyce botched a call on what should have been the final out of the game, brought baseball’s replay debate front and center once again. The Little League World Series began using instant replay in 2008 and switched to a challenge-based system this year. Each manager receives one challenge per game, and if the umpire's call is overturned, the coach retains his or her challenge.

Replay Rules and Systems in Other Sports

Here is a sampling of how replay is currently used in other sports:

National Hockey League: The NHL began using instant replay in 1991. In 2003, the league adopted a replay system that took the responsibility of making controversial calls out of the hands of an in-stadium replay official and bestowed it upon NHL staffers watching every game live from a Toronto office often referred to as the “War Room.” In addition to reviewing disputed goals, the office staffers, who have access to every television broadcast of every game, watch for illegal hits that may warrant a suspension or fine.

National Basketball Association: The NBA began using instant replay to review last-second shots after the 2001-2002 season. Since then, instant replay has been expanded to include reviews of flagrant fouls and to determine if a field goal attempt was a 2-pointer or a 3-pointer. Replay is also used to review possible 24-second shot clock violations and to determine which player last touched the ball before it went out of bounds during the last 2 minutes of regulation and overtime.

Tennis: The Hawk-Eye computer system, which processes the trajectory of a ball using several video cameras and displays a computer rendering of the ball’s path, has been used to review disputed tennis calls since 2006. In 2008, the sport’s various organizing bodies developed a uniform system of rules for utilizing the technology and decided a player would be allowed three unsuccessful challenges per set. Cricket uses the Hawk-Eye system to help determine difficult calls as well.

Soccer: Instant replay isn’t used, though some fans would like to see that change, especially after some of the disputed calls at this year’s World Cup.

Instant Replay Outside of Sports

In 1967, the Federal Highway Administration announced that it would repurpose Verna’s innovation and use video and replay capabilities to monitor busy intersections. According to an article in The New York Times, the FHWA developed a video device that would be triggered by the sound of a crash at a busy intersection. The resulting signal would preserve the video from 20 seconds before impact, which aided in the investigation and analysis of collisions. Today, the U.S. military uses the same technology the NFL uses for instant replay to analyze thousands of hours of video from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now in its 47th season, Sesame Street is one of television's most iconic programs—and it's not just for kids. We're big fans of the Street, and to prove it, here are some of our favorite Sesame facts from previous stories and our Amazing Fact Generator.

Sesame Workshop

1. Oscar the Grouch used to be orange. Jim Henson decided to make him green before season two.

2. How did Oscar explain the color change? He said he went on vacation to the very damp Swamp Mushy Muddy and turned green overnight.

3. During a 2004 episode, Cookie Monster said that before he started eating cookies, his name was Sid.

4. In 1980, C-3PO and R2-D2 visited Sesame Street. They played games, sang songs, and R2-D2 fell in love with a fire hydrant.

5. Mr. Snuffleupagus has a first name—Aloysius

6. Ralph Nader stopped by in 1988 and sang "a consumer advocate is a person in your neighborhood."

7. Caroll Spinney said he based Oscar's voice on a cab driver from the Bronx who brought him to the audition.

15. In 2002, the South African version (Takalani Sesame) added an HIV-positive Muppet named Kami.

16. Six Republicans on the House Commerce Committee wrote a letter to PBS president Pat Mitchell warning that Kami was not appropriate for American children, and reminded Mitchell that their committee controlled PBS' funding.

17.Sesame Street's resident game show host Guy Smiley was using a pseudonym. His real name was Bernie Liederkrantz.

18. Bert and Ernie have been getting questioned about their sexuality for years. Ernie himself, as performed by Steve Whitmere, has weighed in: “All that stuff about me and Bert? It’s not true. We’re both very happy, but we’re not gay,”

19. A few years later, Bert (as performed by Eric Jacobson) answered the same question by saying, “No, no. In fact, sometimes we are not even friends; he can be a pain in the neck.”

20. In the first season, both Superman and Batman appeared in short cartoons produced by Filmation. In one clip, Batman told Bert and Ernie to stop arguing and take turns choosing what’s on TV.

21. In another segment, Superman battled a giant chimp.

22. Telly was originally "Television Monster," a TV-obsessed Muppet whose eyes whirled around as he watched.

23. According to Sesame Workshop, Elmo is the only non-human to testify before Congress.

24. He lobbied for more funding for music education, so that "when Elmo goes to school, there will be the instruments to play."

25. In the early 1990s, soon after Jim Henson’s passing, a rumor circulated that Ernie would be killed off in order to teach children about death, as they'd done with Mr. Hooper.

26. According to Snopes, the rumor may have spread thanks to New Hampshire college student, Michael Tabor, who convinced his graduating class to wear “Save Ernie” beanies and sign a petition to persuade Sesame Workshop to let Ernie live.

27. By the time Tabor was corrected, the newspapers had already picked up the story.

28.Sesame Street’s Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente joined Sesame Workshop as a production assistant and has worked her way to the top.

29. Originally, Count von Count was more sinister. He could hypnotize and stun people.

30. According to Sesame Workshop, all Sesame Street's main Muppets have four fingers except Cookie Monster, who has five.

31. The episode with Mr. Hooper's funeral aired on Thanksgiving Day in 1983. That date was chosen because families were more likely to be together at that time, in case kids had questions or needed emotional support.

37. Sesame's Roosevelt Franklin ran a school, where he spoke in scat and taught about Africa. Some parents hated him, so in 1975 he got the boot, only to inspire Gob Bluth’s racist puppet Franklin on Arrested Development 28 years later.

38. Our good friend and contributor Eddie Deezen was the voice of Donnie Dodo in the 1985 classic Follow That Bird.

39. Cookie Monster evolved from The Wheel-Stealer—a snack-pilfering puppet Jim Henson created to promote Wheels, Crowns and Flutes in the 1960s.

40. This puppet later was seen eating a computer in an IBM training film and on The Ed Sullivan Show.

More than 30 years ago, Apple defined the Super Bowl commercial as a cultural phenomenon. Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, nobody watched the game "just for the commercials"—but one epic TV spot, directed by sci-fi legend Ridley Scott, changed all that. Read on for the inside story of the commercial that rocked the world of advertising, even though Apple's Board of Directors didn't want to run it at all.

THE AD

If you haven't seen it, here's a fuzzy YouTube version:

"WHY 1984 WON'T BE LIKE 1984"

The tagline "Why 1984 Won't Be Like '1984'" references George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984, which envisioned a dystopian future, controlled by a televised "Big Brother." The tagline was written by Brent Thomas and Steve Hayden of the ad firm Chiat\Day in 1982, and the pair tried to sell it to various companies (including Apple, for the Apple II computer) but were turned down repeatedly. When Steve Jobs heard the pitch in 1983, he was sold—he saw the Macintosh as a "revolutionary" product, and wanted advertising to match. Jobs saw IBM as Big Brother, and wanted to position Apple as the world's last chance to escape IBM's domination of the personal computer industry. The Mac was scheduled to launch in late January of 1984, a week after the Super Bowl. IBM already held the nickname "Big Blue," so the parallels, at least to Jobs, were too delicious to miss.

Thomas and Hayden wrote up the story of the ad: we see a world of mind-controlled, shuffling men all in gray, staring at a video screen showing the face of Big Brother droning on about "information purification directives." A lone woman clad in vibrant red shorts and a white tank-top (bearing a Mac logo) runs from riot police, dashing up an aisle towards Big Brother. Just before being snatched by the police, she flings a sledgehammer at Big Brother's screen, smashing him just after he intones "We shall prevail!" Big Brother's destruction frees the minds of the throng, who quite literally see the light, flooding their faces now that the screen is gone. A mere eight seconds before the one-minute ad concludes, a narrator briefly mentions the word "Macintosh," in a restatement of that original tagline: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" An Apple logo is shown, and then we're out—back to the game.

"... It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM-dominated and -controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?"

After seeing the ad for the first time, the Apple audience totally freaked out (jump to about the 5-minute mark to witness the riotous cheering).

SKINHEADS, A DISCUS THROWER, AND A SCI-FI DIRECTOR

Chiat\Day hired Ridley Scott, whose 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner had the dystopian tone they were looking for (and Alien wasn't so bad either). Scott filmed the ad in London, using actual skinheads playing the mute bald men—they were paid $125 a day to sit and stare at Big Brother; those who still had hair were paid to shave their heads for the shoot. Anya Major, a discus thrower and actress, was cast as the woman with the sledgehammer largely because she was actually capable of wielding the thing.

Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld wrote an Apple II program "to flash impressive looking numbers and graphs on [Big Brother's] screen," but it's unclear whether his program was used for the final film. The ad cost a shocking $900,000 to film, plus Apple booked two premium slots during the Super Bowl to air it—carrying an airtime cost of more than $1 million.

WHAT EXECUTIVES AT APPLE THOUGHT

Although Jobs and his marketing team (plus the assembled throng at his 1983 internal presentation) loved the ad, Apple's Board of Directors hated it. After seeing the ad for the first time, board member Mike Markkula suggested that Chiat\Day be fired, and the remainder of the board were similarly unimpressed. Then-CEO John Sculley recalled the reaction after the ad was screened for the group: "The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces ... Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it." Sculley instructed Chiat\Day to sell off the Super Bowl airtime they had purchased, but Chiat\Day principal Jay Chiat quietly resisted. Chiat had purchased two slots—a 60-second slot in the third quarter to show the full ad, plus a 30-second slot later on to repeat an edited-down version. Chiat sold only the 30-second slot and claimed it was too late to sell the longer one. By disobeying his client's instructions, Chiat cemented Apple's place in advertising history.

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak heard that the ad was in trouble, he offered to pony up half the airtime costs himself, saying, "I asked how much it was going to cost, and [Steve Jobs] told me $800,000. I said, 'Well, I'll pay half of it if you will.' I figured it was a problem with the company justifying the expenditure. I thought an ad that was so great a piece of science fiction should have its chance to be seen."

But Woz didn't have to shell out the money; the executive team finally decided to run a 100-day advertising extravaganza for the Mac's launch, starting with the Super Bowl ad—after all, they had already paid to shoot it and were stuck with the airtime.

WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE THOUGHT

When the ad aired, controversy erupted—viewers either loved or hated the ad, and it spurred a wave of media coverage that involved news shows replaying the ad as part of covering it, leading to estimates of an additional $5 million in "free" airtime for the ad. All three national networks, plus countless local markets, ran news stories about the ad. "1984" become a cultural event, and served as a blueprint for future Apple product launches. The marketing logic was brilliantly simple: create an ad campaign that sparked controversy (for example, by insinuating that IBM was like Big Brother), and the media will cover your launch for free, amplifying the message.

The full ad famously ran once during the Super Bowl XVIII (on January 22, 1984), but it also ran the month prior—on December 31, 1983, TV station operator Tom Frank ran the ad on KMVT at the last possible time slot before midnight, in order to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.* (Any awards the ad won would mean more media coverage.) Apple paid to screen the ad in movie theaters before movie trailers, further heightening anticipation for the Mac launch. In addition to all that, the 30-second version was aired across the country after its debut on the Super Bowl.

Chiat\Day adman Steve Hayden recalled: "We ran a 30- second version of '1984' in the top 10 U.S. markets, plus, in an admittedly childish move, in an 11th market—Boca Raton, Florida, headquarters for IBM's PC division." Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld ended his remembrance of the ad by saying:

"A week after the Macintosh launch, Apple held its January board meeting. The Macintosh executive staff was invited to attend, not knowing what to expect. When the Mac people entered the room, everyone on the board rose and gave them a standing ovation, acknowledging that they were wrong about the commercial and congratulating the team for pulling off a fantastic launch.

Chiat\Day wanted the commercial to qualify for upcoming advertising awards, so they ran it once at 1 AM at a small television station in Twin Falls, Idaho, KMVT, on December 15, 1983 [incorrect; see below for an update on this -ed]. And sure enough it won just about every possible award, including best commercial of the decade. Twenty years later it's considered one of the most memorable television commercials ever made."

THE AWFUL 1985 FOLLOW-UP

A year later, Apple again employed Chiat\Day to make a blockbuster ad for their Macintosh Office product line, which was basically a file server, networking gear, and a laser printer. Directed by Ridley Scott's brother Tony, the new ad was called "Lemmings," and featured blindfolded businesspeople whistling an out-of-tune version of Snow White's "Heigh-Ho" as they followed each other off a cliff (referencing the myth of lemming suicide).

Jobs and Sculley didn't like the ad, but Chiat\Day convinced them to run it, pointing out that the board hadn't liked the last ad either. But unlike the rousing, empowering message of the "1984" ad, "Lemmings" directly insulted business customers who had already bought IBM computers. It was also weirdly boring—when it was aired at the Super Bowl (with Jobs and Sculley in attendance), nobody really reacted. The ad was a flop, and Apple even proposed running a printed apology in TheWall Street Journal. Jay Chiat shot back, saying that if Apple apologized, Chiat would buy an ad on the next page, apologizing for the apology. It was a mess:

20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

In 2004, the ad was updated for the launch of the iPod. The only change was that the woman with the hammer was now listening to an iPod, which remained clipped to her belt as she ran. You can watch that version too:

FURTHER READING

Check out Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld's excellent first-person account of the ad. A similar account (but with more from Jobs's point of view) can found in the Steve Jobs biography, and an even more in-depth account is in The Mac Bathroom Reader. The Mac Bathroom Reader is out of print; you can read an excerpt online, including QuickTime movies of the two versions of the ad, plus a behind-the-scenes video. Finally, you might enjoy this 2004 USA Today article about the ad, pointing out that ads for other computers (including Atari, Radio Shack, and IBM's new PCjr) also ran during that Super Bowl.

* = A Note on the Airing in 1983

Update: Thanks to Tom Frank for writing in to correct my earlier mis-statement about the first air date of this commercial. As you can see in his comment below, Hertzfeld's comments above (and the dates cited in other accounts I've seen) are incorrect. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Frank, in which we discuss what it was like running both "1984" and "Lemmings" before they were on the Super Bowl!